This is the east side of Sandhill in 1866, across the road from Bessie Surtees’ House. The river is just out of shot on the right. These buildings had survived Tyneside’s biggest fire a decade earlier, but were eventually cleared away by the resulting wave of redevelopment in the area.
Newcastle was once an international sea port, and the business of the town’s coal merchants, manufacturers and shipping companies had been conducted for centuries in these ancient buildings, as well as others that lined the Quayside.
The horse and carriage on the left was parked outside an overhanging Elizabethan building, which was occupied by the hemp merchants W. B. Proctor & Co. The company also imported guano – the excrement of seabirds – directly from South America, which was used as fertiliser.
The Georgian brick building to the right of it was the warehouse of the wine merchants Surtees & Co. It also housed the first telegraph office on Sandhill. The ground floors of the other buildings were shops, including a tobacconist, a hairdresser and three beer retailers, with offices above them.
The Great Fire of 1854 devastated the Quayside immediately behind Sandhill, creating a huge demand for new offices in the area. This was partly met when Exchange Buildings rose up from the ashes of the fire, which was one of the country’s biggest office blocks when it was completed in 1861.
The property boom caused by the fire also spread to Sandhill; the buildings in the photo were pictured shortly before the east side of it was dragged into the nineteenth century too. They were no longer fit for purpose and the occupants hankered after the practicality and prestige of modern premises.
The properties were gradually demolished and replaced by the impressive range of buildings that we see there today. All physical traces of this old part of Sandhill are now long gone, but there is still one link to these buildings.
W. B. Proctor & Co moved across the road to the Side, where they built Proctor House and traded as Thomas Proctor and Co. Amazingly, they are still in business today, on the Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead. Although they no longer deal in seagull dung.